Programmed Cell Death

• Known as cellular suicide
• The death of a cell as a result of the events inside the cell
• It usually confers an advantage during a lifecycle (for example the differentiation of fingers and toes in a developing embryo occurs because cells between the fingers apoptose resulting in separate digits).

There are two main forms of cell death:

1. Apoptosis - Type I
2. Autophagy - Type II - characterised by the formation of large vacuoles that eat away organelles in a specific sequence prior to the destruction of the nucleus